Barely There
by xElementFivex
Summary: Mello can't remember why or how he got there. But the main problem seems to be that no one can see him. Except Matt, the one person he had never expected to see again.


**I've been away for... quite a while now. Life has been crazy. But before I could update any of my other fics, I had to get this idea out of my head before it completely clogged up my brain. Hope you enjoy it!**

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><p>The light was blinding. It was like looking straight into the sun except that the color wasn't right. It had all of the intensity, but none of the pain. Still it was too much. He tried to look away, but turning his head, he found the light was everywhere, it encompassed everything.<p>

Just as he was beginning to panic, there was a shift. There was no other word to describe. It wasn't a just a change in location or direction but a _shift_ that he felt not with his body, but with something deep inside him that he couldn't name. For a moment, just a moment, the world turned upside down and inside out. Up became down, left became right, white became black, and he forgot who he was.

And then it stopped. He was himself again

Mello blinked his eyes rapidly and the street slowly came into focus. After that brilliant light, the world looked more depressing. Everything seemed to have a gray wash and even the sunlight beating down on the pavement seemed dingy.

He gave a final, definitive blink. As the riot inside his head calmed, he took stock of his surroundings. He recognized where he was; standing outside the downtown hospital. It wasn't the ritzy, new one a couple of blocks away, built a few years ago and a far cry from the one he stood in front of now. No, this was the one you could come to if you needed someone down quick, and more important, quiet. Mello knew, he had sent enough of his own men there after accidents. The mafia didn't exactly exude safe work environments.

But that wasn't his concern right now. Searching his mind, he realized he had no clue why he was here, standing on the street, with the late afternoon sun glinting at him from between two buildings across the street. What was the last thing he could remember? His head felt scrambled and trying to organize his thoughts felt as useless as trying to hold water in his cupped hands. He scrunched his eyes shut, as if that would help. It probably didn't but it made him feel better nonetheless.

He had been… there was a raid. Yagami and the other policeman. And Yagami had the Death Note. He shut his eyes as hard as he could, but it was no use. His memory simply didn't reach far enough back. It was like peering into the corners of a dark room. He could try as hard as he wanted but without something to illuminate the darkness, he could see nothing.

He opened his eyes and looked around once more as his rational brain took over. The memory lapse could (he hoped) be worked out later. For now there were more important things he had to take care. He already knew where he was, but he didn't have a clue how much time could have passed. Luckily foot traffic was heavy today, as people hurried home from work (or maybe from something sketchier).

"Hey," he called to man in jeans and button down with a tie, who seemed to hurrying towards the bus stop at the end of the street. The man ignored him.

"Hey!" he called again. Again the man ignored him, and now the man's pace took him past Mello. His tie flapped to the side and Mello could see a small coffee stain on the front of his shirt.

"HEY!" The man didn't even turn his head. Now Mello was angry; he didn't like being ignored. He began to stalk angrily after the man, noticing as he walked that his whole body seemed lighter somehow. But that thought was pushed aside as he caught up to the man. "I'm talking to you," he said with irritation in his voice. He put his hand out to tap the man on the shoulder, and at that very instant something strange happened.

His hand went- there was no better way to describe it- _through_ the man. At the same time the man shivered and looked around, but then seemed to shrug it off and continued walking. This time Mello didn't follow. He was rooted to the spot in shock and confusion. He stared at his hand, flipping it from palm to back. It looked the same as it always had. Long, pale fingers and the scar on the side of his pinky where he had broken that glass when he was seven. He stared harder. He poked at his right hand with his left. It felt… well, he didn't have a word for how it felt. It was there, but not there. The edges of his fingers seemed softer, blurred somehow.

He knelt to the ground, and tentatively swept his fingers along the cracked sidewalk. They were met with resistance, but it didn't feel right. There was none of the grittiness, none of the texture that he should have felt. He had touched sidewalk before; knew that he should feel bumps and edges, but it felt like there was an invisible layer between him and the ground. Something that coated his hand and kept him from touching it. He swept his other hand down. The same thing happened.

At that moment, a shadow fell across him. Mello looked up as a woman stepped past him. He expected her to trip, or to at least say excuse me, but she didn't seem to notice him. He looked around. In fact, no one seemed to notice the blonde boy in the tight outfit kneeling on the ground. And it wasn't like that was exactly a normal sight.

Mello sank to his knees, and tried his best to ignore the fact that he couldn't feel sharp rocks poking through his jeans like he should have. He stared at his hands as he slowly curled and uncurled his fingers.

"Well shit," he muttered. "What the hell is going on?"

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><p><strong>Reviews make me a happy panda.<strong>


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